Finding Narnia
by OUATLovr
Summary: All of the Pevensies but one die on a train, going to Aslan's Country. Narnia dies with them, as it was always meant to. But Susan Pevensie remains behind, and, with her, something else does, too.
1. Chapter 1

Rating: T (for angst, violence, gore, character death)

A/N: I wasn't content with Susan's ending in the books; if felt to me like Lewis was condemning her solely for the fact that she wanted to wear makeup and be a normal teenage girl, although I realize that was not the intention, so this fic is my attempt to give Susan some closure.

Chapter One

(It might have been a gust of wind, brushing cold against her skin and causing her hat to fly off, into the open street beyond the outdoor cafe.)

A trolley flew by a moment after her hat, nearly trampling the thing, but the wind picked up her stylish hat at the last moment and blew it out of harm's way.

Her companion, ever the gentleman, jumped to his feet and rushed after it, and she gave him a grateful smile when he returned and placed it almost daintily back on her head of black curls before Susan could so much as shiver from the cold.

"Thank you," she smiled at him, and he blushed under the praise. She was beginning to suspect, with every passing moment that she spent in his company, that her companion was not used to the candid attentions of a woman, which made him rather a bore.

"Anything for my lady," he said, grinning slightly, but Susan did not smile at the words.

Meant as endearment, they reminded her of a time, so very long ago, when she had been called the same as a title, as a form of respect...

A children's game, she thought sadly, and thought of it no more.

"I was hoping that you might accompany me to the Rivers' Dance," the man in front of her, boy really, spoke up then, voice a little shaky with the request, and Susan eyed him coyly.

The Rivers were some of the wealthiest socialites in London this year, Mr. Rivers a weapons manufacturer for the war who became extremely fortunate in the last few months of it, and Mrs. Rivers the type of socialite who enjoyed taking young, promising people under her wing.

As she had Susan, when she discovered "Miss Pevensie," some months ago, at a ball.

She was insisting that Susan go, if only to meet all of the eligible bachelors Mrs. Rivers could find for her, and to at least have a "taste of true society."

Susan did not mind. In fact, she was rather delighted.

The Rivers' Dance was to be one of the most lavish social functions of the year. She'd been putting a plan into motion, for the past several months, to trick either Edmund or Peter into going with her, in the hopes that they would find a suitable match while they were in London.

...And stop obsessing over a child's imaginings.

But that didn't seem plausible now, after their latest spat, and so Susan only smiled prettily and nodded.

"I would be delighted to attend with you, Mr. Collin," she replied, even if some part of her was still bothered by that gust of wind, even if she knew that she shouldn't be. "Though I shall have to ask Mrs. Rivers' approval, of course; I was planning on attending with one of my brothers, which she thought would be more appropriate for the occasion."

"Ah," Mr. Collin frowned. "Well, if my lady would prefer to go with them, instead..."

Susan leaned forward, placing her gloved white hand atop his own. "To be truthful, I am relieved that you asked. My...brothers decided to return home to Finchley quite early. I was quite mortified that I would not be able to find a partner before the dance."

They had decided to go back to Finchley early for the Christmas celebrations when they knew she would not accompany them, angered that Susan was no longer, as they had put it, "a friend of Narnia," as if she had ever been. Susan could remember their pleading words, begging her to come along with them and miss this "foolish dance," as Peter had put it.

Nothing less would have held Susan determined to stay, and by the look on Edmund's face after Peter had said the words, he knew it.

Mr. Collin grinned at her, taking a long, strengthening gulp of his brandy before saying, "You look very beautiful today, Miss Pevensie. I can't imagine how anyone would be unable to tolerate your company." Then he blushed. "Not that you don't always look beautiful, only-"

"You are too kind, Mr. Collin," Susan interrupted, quickly tiring of his nervousness. He was sweet, after all, but Susan had not been impressed by sweetness in a long time.

He smiled, a flare of red running up his neck. "Do you mind if I ask the color of the gown you will be wearing?" he asked, glancing around as if afraid someone would hear such an improper question. And just when Susan was beginning to find him interesting. "Only, I wish the corsage to match."

She nodded. Practical. That was a point in his favor. Peter would have never thought to ask, and they would have shown up in clashing colors. "Of course. Lilacs," she told him, and Mr. Collin nodded, bent down to kiss her hand.

Susan felt a bit sick, as his lips brushed against hers.

"Then I shall be honored to escort you to the dance, Miss Pevensie. Shall we say, I will pick you up at seven o'clock?"

Susan nodded, pretended to be a bit breathless under his attentions. "I'll be waiting."

(Only it didn't feel like wind at all. It felt more like a breath on the back of her neck. An icy, angry breath that only she could feel.)


	2. Chapter 2

(Susan often thought that the Pevensie children's childish imaginings of another world fraught with danger and battles and talking animals had been their way of coping with the war and leaving their family for the first time.)

They were dead.

Three of her parents' four children, her parents themselves, her cousin and Ms. Pole, and even the Professor whose home had once been a sanctuary for them.

All of them, every reminder of Susan's past, of her childhood, gone in an instant.

She was assured that the deaths had been relatively painless, too quick for anything else. The train they were on had gone careening off the tracks in a moment, flipping through the air and exploding.

There was dynamite on board, for the mineshafts in Finchley, where the family was returning, and where Professor Kirke and his wife were coming to visit, for the winter holiday.

The train, already at a danger of exploding upon impact with the ground, went up in flames the moment the dynamite was triggered after the train careened off the tracks, killing everyone on board.

Susan absorbed this information in a state resembling shock, nodding at the words, understanding their context, but not fully taking them in.

She knew that she had not taken them in when she heard them from the mouth of the constable, for, where the housekeeper fell to her knees on the floor and sobbed aloud, Susan only stood in silence, staring with a blank expression at the constable, as he awkwardly gave his sympathies and moved on to the next house to be burdened with such news.

When the constable left, shutting the door behind him, Susan moved instinctively over to the sofa, sinking into it before she collapsed.

The maid, a shy girl who had been the Pevensies' only servant to stay behind with Susan in the London townhouse, and had evidently been lurking in the hall, burst into sobs the moment he was gone.

Susan remembered rather idly that she had always thought the girl had something of a crush on Peter, all dimpled smiles and pretty blushes whenever he came near, though the girl would never have admitted it, and Peter had never seen it.

Had.

He was dead now, along with the rest of them, and suddenly any angered thoughts toward her siblings, toward their last conversation, vanished with the realization.

Susan slumped a little further into the sofa, burying her face in her hands. She heard the maid's voice after a time, small and far away, still full of its own grief, asking if she was all right, if she needed anything.

Of course she wasn't all right; Susan wanted to scream at the girl. Didn't she understand? They were dead. They were dead, and the last time Susan had spoken to them, she had done so in anger.

(She didn't know if she believed that their deaths had been painless. Perhaps that was only a fairy story, meant to console her in her grief, like the stories they had made up of another world when they were separated from their mother by the war. She would have rather had the truth. Would have rather known if they had suffered in the dying, if Lucy's sweet face had contorted in pain, if Edmund had screamed at the impact, if Peter had been forced to watch one of them go.)


End file.
